


Stronger Than You Think

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, F/M, Highschool AU, Humanstuck, Schizophrenia, trying to fit in, wow look I suck at tagging
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-07 06:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Latula Pyrope, and you've just made a good impression, for the first time in your life. But this weird kid across the street makes you wish you hadn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s almost eight o’clock when Mom kicks you out of the house, sipping her coffee and snapping, “Get your ass to school, you lazy bum.” Terezi has begun to cry, and that’s not something you currently want to deal with.

So you grab your skateboard, bag, and lunch, and rocket out the door, shouting a quick goodbye over your shoulder. It’s still so early, but you’re glad to be out of the house. You’d just unpacked the last box pertaining to your room, and don’t really quite look forward to coming home to build the living room, but whatever. The sooner you do it, the sooner it’ll all be over, and you never know when you might actually find some pretty cool stuff in the most unlikely-looking boxes. The school isn’t far, Beforus High, but being late is sort of your thing so you hang back, starting to explore the neighborhood for the first time since you got there, one week before. It’s not as big as the city you moved from, not even close, but as you glide smoothly down the streets you find a park, and, upon closer inspection, see the telltale half-pipe and rails that just scream, “Skate Park”. Radical. For as long as you can remember, skating has been the only way to make you feel okay. The park is deserted, but that’s not so surprising because it’s...

A glance at your phone makes your nose crinkle in mild annoyance. It’s almost eight-twenty, so heading over to the school is probably the best course of action. Mere minutes later, you burst through the gates and jump the stairs, but at the glare from a stern-looking adult, you tuck the board under your arm and hit the ground at a run. It takes a couple of quick steps to slow yourself down to a walk, and from there, you stride up to a building that just has to be the office and lean your elbow on the desk. It’s empty save for a little old woman sitting in a swivel chair, squinting through thick lenses at various flora and fauna on her desk. 

You take a deep breath, exhale, then take another, just in case. “Hey!” You call. “My name is Pyrope, and I was wondering if I could have my schedule. I moved here about a week ago?” A smile curves over your lips. Maybe this school won’t be so bad.

The old woman jumps. “Oh! Pyrope. Of course.” She rises to her feet(not much difference in height from her sitting position) and scurries over to a file cabinet much taller than she is. Thankfully for her, she reaches for the bottom cabinet. There’s a brief flurry of paper noises as she rifles furiously through it for a moment, then it goes quiet as she emerges with a few sheafs of paper. “Here you are, sweetheart. This is the schedule,” she motions to the top sheet, which, sure enough, is neatly printed with subjects and room numbers and teachers’ names, “this is your map, and this one is the code of conduct.” 

“Cool, thanks.” As you leave the room, you toss the code of conduct into the trash can. Who needs that shit anyway?

The five minute warning bell rings, but, of course, you don’t know that. You’re fairly certain you’re late, and have no idea where to find your first class. It’s biology, and so you head towards what must be the science building, an apparency made obvious by the word, “Science” tagged boldly in bright red. You then proceed to roam it’s hallways, examining the room numbers and unable to be bothered to ask other students for help. In fact, you don’t look at anyone at all, keeping your eyes firmly between your papers and the number plaques on the walls. At last, you find the room number that matches the one on your paper, and enter. Turns out, you’re not late after all, so you slink up to the teacher’s desk and wait to be noticed. He glances up after perhaps a minute of this, he glances up, eyes flicking to your face. “Yes?”

You’re determined to address him boldly, continue the way you had done to the secretary, in the office. But the fact that there were so many people in the room, with prying, judgmental eyes just puts you off. “HiI’mLatulaPyropeandIjustmovedhere,Igotputinthisclass,IwaswonderingwhereIshouldsit?” Well, shit. You squeeze your eyes shut and turn around, slinking back down the aisles of desks to just take an empty seat. In the back. You blink your eyes open and realize that the whole class had followed your movements to the back of the room. “Sorry,” You try to say, but no sound comes out and it just looks like you’re some batshit insane person, mouthing to herself and unable to meet any of the class’s curious gazes. 

The bell rings and the class’s faces snap to the front of the room, where the teacher has risen and is beginning the lesson. He gives you a weird, disapproving look down his nose, then opens his mouth to speak.

Once the shame burn has faded from your face, you glance around the classroom. The students all have something on their desks, though very few are taking notes. Most are doodling or playing with their pens, making origami boats or passing notes to their friends. The rest of the back row is empty, save for the seat in the opposite corner from yours. In it, is a boy in an oversized yellow and back striped shirt and a wild tangle of bright orange hair that completely obfuscates his eyes His desk is empty and he’s sitting stiffly in his seat, looking determinedly at the hands twisting and pulling and fretting in his lap. He doesn’t seem to notice anything. Not even you, who has just made herself out to be the biggest weirdo in history.

The lecture passes, the bell rings, and you move on to your next class. You don’t try to approach your teacher, raise your hand when she calls attendance, and do your work in silence. The rest of the day passes in a similar fashion and you see the bee boy twice more. The only break in the routine is during lunch, when you sprint to the bathroom, lock a stall behind you, and eat a meager portion of what you brought while huddled on the closed lid of the toilet seat.

Only when the final bell rings do you leave the school, having completely let yourself down, marveling over how your the only person ever to be able to go to a public school on your first day and not make a single friend.

-~-

“Hey, twerp.” You crouch down and ruffle Terezi’s hair, but she turns away from you and sticks her thumb in her mouth immediately. Four-year-olds. You watch her slouch away for a moment longer before heading up to your room, not bothering to say hi to Mom. 

You trip on the stairs on the way to your room, and that’s really sort of the last straw. You absolutely don’t cry, merely quivering with disappointment while scrambling up the last couple stairs, scooting into your room, and closing the door behind you. 

That’s when you cry, curling in on yourself and keening quietly, trying to keep it down. Your shoulders shake with sobs and you sniffle, big fat tears stopping and starting on the disjointed trail down your cheeks. 

This goes on for an embarrassingly long time, until your mom opens your door with a, “Oh, hi, honey, I didn’t hear you come in. Did you have a good first- Oh, baby, no.” You hear the door close and feet walk up to stop in front of you. She kneels and takes your chin into her hands, raising your face from your knees and pulling your rectangular lenses off your face. You try not to look at her as she wipes your face with her sleeve and your lip quivers madly. “Sweetheart, moving here was supposed to be a fresh start for you. I remember having such good time in high school, what with parties and first boyfriends and all. I just wanted you to do the same.” 

Since that time in second grade when she struck the office lady across the face for not divulging the whereabouts of the boy you’d revealed had been spreading rumors about you, your mom has been known as the Dragon Mom. She is the best mom anyone could ask for, having had you at age eighteen yet still keeping you and caring with every ounce of her being, but the nickname fits. She’s always been there for you, your protective mama bear. She had Terezi thirteen years later with some stranger from a bar she’s never pursued. You get the feeling that she just wanted to do the whole, “bearing a child” thing correctly, at the right age with enough money, and it’s been working reasonably okay, as okay as it can work with no dad. Terezi’s a perfect, sweet, sassy child, with a killer laugh and an entire army of friends. 

So you nod and gulp and cough and sniffle, and realize with slight panic that you’re having trouble breathing. Asthma. That’s not so bad though. “Mom, I-” You don’t know what you are right now though. Except sorry. “Sorry. I’m sorry, mom.”

She laughs, a little sadly. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, baby. I just- I wished you would have taken this opportunity for yourself though. Things were so bad at our old place- I thought you’d make an effort to have a better life here. You’re seventeen. I would have thought you could try and take control of your life by now.” With a sad sigh, she gets up and leaves, closing the door behind her. 

But that’s not all that you’re sorry for. You’re sorry for not being the perfect kid Terezi is, with all of her friends and smarts and infinite talents. You’re sorry you weren’t born later, so that Mom would have had a chance to go to college and be more successful. You’re sorry that the incident in kindergarten happened; something not really all that important, not particularly awful or embarrassing, but that no one ever seemed to forget about anyway. You’re sorry that she’s your only friend, and that Terezi won’t talk to you. This sort of sucks.

After that whole ordeal, going down to unpack the living room suddenly seems so much less important.

Well, you think bleakly, at least things can’t get any worse.

-~-

By the next day, you’ve given Mom’s words a great deal of thought. You’ve gotten up, put on as much makeup as you can without looking like a pedophilic clown(this isn’t a lot; your skills with the face brushes are extremely limited, but you look fine), brushed your dark hair, found something to wear that accentuates your curves, showered, and eaten a light but satisfactory breakfast. Not really in that order. 

It doesn’t seem like anything can go wrong today. As you depart from the home, Mom stops you, and makes a little mini-braid in your hair. She smiles encouragingly at you and playfully shoos you out the door. “Have fun, sweetie. I’m really proud of you.”

You leave your skateboard at home this time, and take a few dollars to buy lunch with. The wind whips though your hair, and the braid tugs painfully at your scalp. It doesn’t take long to get to school, and you’re still fairly early when you push open the door to your science class. 

The chatter continues. Everyone is turned around in their seats, listening to this girl talk about her new motorbike. She’s bragging about the deal she had managed to make and how she’d haggled the vendor, although you don’t see why such haggling was necessary. By the looks of her clothes and demeanor, she had the money in the first place. She has hair that looks boy short at first glance, but then you figure out that a great deal of it is in two long, thin braids past her waist. She wears large, pink glasses and has a daring, predatory grin.

Despite your misgivings, you find a seat a ways to her left and listen in on the conversation. You laugh along with them, and she gives you a sidelong glance of surprised approval as she talks. You smile at her.

When the bell rings, you get up to go back to your seat, but the girl grabs your bag and pulls you down into the seat next to hers. “Hey, new girl.” She talks with a thick Manhattan-esque accent, and you can’t help but think of Rambo. “Why don’cha sit here, with me?”

The words, “Oh, I was just going to sit in the back like yesterday, sorry,” die on your tongue, and you restrain yourself from gesturing to Bee Boy. He’s wearing yellow again. “Oh, sure!” You sit. “I’m Latula Pyrope.”

“Meenah Peixes.” 

She offers you her hand, and you shake it, just as the teacher drones, “Ladies, no talking.” 

You busy yourself with taking out your things and facing the front as Meenah answers, “Yeah, whateva’. Nobody listens to your stupidass lecture anyway.”

You duck your head apologetically at Mr. Teacher, but don’t say anything. 

As the lesson goes on, you learn via passed notes that the boy on Meena’s other side is called Cronus, and the girl behind them, reading, is called Aranea. Cronus’s and Meenah’s breaths both stink of cigarette.

-~-

Meenah, it turns out, isn’t in any of your other classes. Neither is Cronus, but Aranea is with you in history and math. Aranea is really smart and fun to talk to, but she usually has her nose buried in a book. Except in history, where she listens to the teacher, rapt. Sometimes she mouths along to the lesson, and, more often than not, she raises her hand with some fact about the culture or happenings of whatever it is we’re learning about. It’s pretty weird, and sort of funny. Aranea’s “fun facts” can sometimes last the entire period, though, so the teacher often ignores her hand.

You eat lunch at a table with Meenah, Aranea, Cronus, a girl in your history named Porrim, and a girl you haven’t seen, called Damara. She’s Japanese, and although Meenah insists she knows English, you haven’t heard her speak anything but her native tongue. Some boy in red shows up in the middle sometimes, blathers on about something or other for an unspeakably long time, and gets shooed away by Meenah just in time for the bell to ring. During this shpiel, and even before, you kind of almost missed the bathroom stall. Everyone you sit with, except for the boy in the red, had gone out for a cigarette before settling down for lunch. You’ve never smoked in your life, and even sometimes make a point to cough extra loudly when passing someone smoking in the street. Smoke is dangerous, especially when you have asthma.

You’ve noticed that Bee Boy goes to sit with his own friends for lunch. There’s a boy with wild hair who never seems to say much, and a girl who talks way too loudly. The two seem to balance each other out. When he’s with them, Bee Boy smiles, and it’s no doubt the most breathtaking thing you’ve ever seen, although you only see it at a distance.

The rest of the day goes easily, and you get to watch Bee Boy during your last class. Not that you’re watching him in particular, but you pick a seat in the back row so that you can sneak sidelong glances at him.

When it’s time to go home, you’re eager. Mom welcomes you back with a hug, and you usually leave right away to go to Meenah’s house. Or Cronus’s. Or Damara’s. Or whoever’s house it is deemed you will go to. You’ve never gone to your house with your friends, for some reason. Maybe it’s the absence of tobacco smoke in your home that makes you wary of inviting them over, or the lack of motorcycle or cool food, or the quite obvious lack of anything expensive. You try not to think about it, but the lack of money might really be the cause. It’s not like you live in a hovel; your home is a neat, tidy, two story townhouse with a yard and a tire swing and everything, but it’s not the large, grand homes your friends were born into. 

Your skateboard lays in your closet, untouched since the disastrous first day of school.


	2. Chapter 2

“Yo!” Meenah’s call hangs brightly in the afternoon air. The final bell has just rung, and the corridor is quickly emptying of all students. Bee Boy doesn’t turn around. You all run to catch up to him, but he speeds up and holds his bag tight, practically racing down the halls.

“Captor-Freak! Yes, you! We’re talkin’ to yeh!” It’s Cronus now. “Captor” continues his frenzied speed-walk towards the exit. You’re not really sure what you’re doing, Meenah just said that you guys were going to talk to him. And, being as curious as you were about the Bee Boy, you went along. But this doesn’t really look like talking, and you’re fairly certain you want it to stop. As you watch, Bee Boy- no, Captor, he has a name now, trips and falls, skidding painfully on the linoleum. Holy shit. No, don’t let them catch up to you, get up, Bee Boy, run...!

But then it’s too late, and your group is catching up to him, surrounding him. A desperate murmur escapes his lips, something that sounds like, “Please, go away, please go away, please go away, please go away...” With a start, you realize that it’s the first time you’ve heard him talk. And your heart clenches when you process the words’ meaning. 

“Well, that ain’t very polite, is it.” Cronus again. 

“I- I, shit, I said please-” comes the muted reply.

“Didn’t your momma ever teach you manners?” It’s Meenah now, and she laughs cruelly before continuing. “Oh, I forgot, you don’t have one.” The entire group laughs, but you remain completely silent, watching this turn of events without a clue what to do. How to help Bee Boy, how to stop them-

“No wonder you’re so fucked in the head; I guess living in a gay house does that to you.” Cold sneering. You don’t even try to identify it anymore.

People passing give the scene uneasy looks, but no one tries to help. Captor is curled up in a tiny, pathetic ball, hands fisting and pulling and worrying at his red hair. The stream of whispers emanating from his lips now sounds suspiciously like, “You’re not real, you can’t be real, I can’t right now, please, please go away, you’re not real...” 

At this, Cronus leans in close to his face. “Oh yeah? Well, have your ghost buddies ever done,” he pulls back his fist and slams it, as hard as he can, into Captor’s face, “This!” 

‘Holy shit, Cronus, stop!’ Your lips form the words, but no sound comes out. Captor cries out, there’s an awful crunching noise, then he falls silent, trembling.

The funny thing is, you think Cronus has something prove. He looks to Meenah and the others for approval. You don’t really know why, although you’ve been with them for three or so months, now. 

Bee Boy has started to talk again. “I’m sorry, sorry, please go away, leave me alone, I promise I’m sorry-”

“Bein’ a real suck up now, ain’tcha?” Cronus leans close again. “Do you like my face, gay-boy? Or do you like my dick?” Everyone laughs.

Everything Captor says in reply is unintelligible, except for one thing: “...Fish-dick,”

A snort of laughter pushes past your frozen lips. Cronus whips around to give you an incredulous stare. You stare straight at Captor and pretend you hadn’t made a sound, so his gaze quickly flicks past you to some girl with her back turned walking towards the exit. “Bitch!” He calls after her. She flicks him the middle finger over her shoulder.

Captor’s nose is bleeding, heavily. Red is dripping down his chin and staining his shirt. The nose looks different to how it used to, too. You think it might be broken. You have your own experience with broken noses.

Everyone else is glaring and jeering insults at the indifferent girl. As you watch, Captor rises to his feet, takes his bag, and books it to the exit. You catch a glimpse of his wide, frightened eyes though bright hair as he turns around and gives you a fleeting, terrified stare, no doubt wary that you’ll alert the others that he’s going. You remain silent, though, and nobody even notices until they hear the door slam behind him.

Cronus begins to run after him, but Meenah’s hand on his shoulder makes him pause. “Whateva’, fish-dick.” You can hear the smirk in her voice. “We’ll get him next time.”

Fish-dick sniffs at her, visibly miffed, but chills out. 

“Well, let’s go to my place then.” Porrim speaks for the first time since this ordeal began. She sounds almost bored. “I’ve got something I want to give to Meenah.” She always has some cool accessory or clothing item to bestow upon someone, and she lent you a lot of her clothes when you first started hanging out with them. At first, you thought she had a thing for Kankri, the boy in red, but it turns out that they’ve known each other for years, and she’s always looked after him. It seems she was the only one who could put up with his incessant chatter.

“Actually,” your throat feels dry, “I have to babysit my sister today.” A lie. Your mom works from home. “Sorry, Porrim.”

“Whatever,” comes the predictable reply, “Let’s go, you guys.”

They move away, already chatting and joking and seemingly having forgotten what just went down. 

You head in the opposite direction, after Captor. It’s gruesome, but fairly easy to follow his tracks; about every ten feet or so there’s a small splatter of fresh blood on the ground. You follow this trail for maybe ten minutes, then he’s in sight, seated against a cement wall in the shade. There are trees and kids and a slide and monkey bars and a sand pit, and small footpaths through lush grass and tall trees and even rails and a half-pipe. It doesn’t take long to for you to realize that you’ve followed him to the park you found on your first neighborhood outing, and you feel a pang of regret that you never returned with your skateboard.

He hasn’t spotted you yet. He’s tenderly cupping his nose, scrubbing at his eyes, biting his lip with an adorable overbite. 

You meander closer, until you’re just a few feet in front of him. “Hey.” 

His head snaps up, quickly followed by the rest of his body. He presses his back against the cement wall in an attempt to distance him from you. His lips move but no words come out.

Shit, he’s scared of you. He’s probably a lot taller than you, but he’s hunched over, tucking in all of his limbs as if he’s ready to flee at any moment. “Wait. Dude, please. Captor.” He is waiting, but he’s trembling. “Oh, come on, I’m trying to do a good thing, here.” You try to explain. 

He shakes his head once, quickly. “I don’t- want-” he manages.

“I can fix your nose.” You blurt out. “I know how; I’ve fixed mine a good few times, and that break looks nasty. It might not go back right if you don’t do it right away.” You curse yourself. Rambling explanations don’t get one very far in life. 

He raises his head and you make eye contact with one bright blue eye though the thick tangles of orange. “O-oh.”

You’re not sure whether or not you have permission. His fingers are clenched against the wall behind him though, as if he’s steeling himself for something, so you confirm with an, “Okay?” His head jerks down in what might be a nod, so you step forward, gently. Then, when he makes no movement or sound to deter you, you take another, then another until you’re right in front of him. He worries his bottom lip with his bright white overbite again, but still remains motionless.

“This will be easier if we’re sitting. Can you do that for me?” He sits. “Radical.” You raise your hands to his face and steady his chin with one hand, brushing his hair aside with the other. 

He has large doe eyes, one blue and one brown, with arching golden-red eyebrows that just make you positive the hair is natural. His lashes are long and dark, a russet orange that casts faint shadows on his irises, although the different colors still manage to be bright and self-imposing. Freckles dust his cheekbones and nose, and, now that you’re close enough to tell, his arms and neck as well. It’s the first time you’ve seen his face in such startling clarity, and you’re a little bit breathtaken. Now really isn’t the time, though, as blood continues to drip from his thin, pointed chin, and his freckled nose is twisted and scrunched up in a way that just has to be painful.

He breaths shallowly onto your wrist, and you’re reminded of the task at hand. “Okay.” You take a deep breath and begin to move your hand towards his nose. That’s when you notice the tears gliding silently from his big, sweet doe eyes. 

“Awwe, shit, no, don’t cry,” You beg, your lip pouting out as you use your thumb to wipe them away.

That’s when he decks you, knocking you flat on your back as he launches himself away. Being effectively winded, you’re incapacitated until you are capable of breathing without making a face like a dying fish. So when you’re able to pull yourself into a sitting position, wheezing, he’s long gone.

God dammit.

-~-

When you get home, feeling thoroughly defeated, exhausted, and sad, you’re still wheezing. This is becoming something of a cause for concern, so you go up and grab your inhaler, take a dose, and feel your lungs relax and stop constricting. Much better.

This is the time where you finally have a minute to take a pause, think over the events of the past hour, and just think... wow. 

Bee Boy. You’ve learned a lot about him. Granted, a great deal of it is stuff that isn’t necessarily true, seeing as it’s information from Meenah and the others, but now you know, well, you know a lot more than you did. 

You know that he gets bullied, that he’s hesitant to fight back, that he’s sassy, that he’s shy, that his eyes look like pools of forever and that he bites his lip, and that he might never smile that perfect overbite smile for you because you’ve associated yourself with his tormentors. 

Which sucks.

It sucks a whole lot.

But you, Latula Pyrope, are nothing if not determined. You’re not sure why you’re so curious, not sure why you’re so determined to see that smile, but you’ll go with it. Because that’s what you do, you go with it. Even if it leads you into a huge ditch of torment, even if it gives you craptons of grief later, as it so often has in the past, going with your gut is something you’re good at. Your gut isn’t always so great at knowing what’s good for you though, as past event have proved to you time and time again. 

Bee Boy, Captor, is special, though. You can tell. You hope he got home okay and that he fixed his nose, and that he’ll be at school tomorrow so that you can affirm, with your own eyes, that everything was okay.

-~- 

It finally comes to your attention that you have an entire free day to do whatever you like, free of Meenah’s dictation. That’s rad. 

For the first time in months, you delve into your closet and pull out your skateboard. It’s dusty but still pretty much exactly how you remember it, and when you swipe your hand across the surface, dust motes spiral into your face, making you sneeze. 

Growing excited just looking at it, you race downstairs and shout to your mom that you’re going out, slamming the door behind you and leaping down the stairs. You toss the board ahead of you, intending to catch up to it with a mighty, leaping bound, but you miss, of course, and have to take a few stumbling steps to regain your balance as the board rolls away.

Damn, you are out of practice.

You start to run after the board; it’s picking up speed as it rolls down the small incline that is the block that you live on. You’ve hardly taken five paces when the board clatters into the street and gets run over by a car. You don’t see the broken-nosed kid across the street’s eyes widen, or his shoulders cringe, or hear his muted exclamation of, “Holy shit, that really, I think it sucks.”


	3. Chapter 3

Ch3

 

You’re chasing after it desperately even before the sickening crunch reaches your ears. The sound hits you like a knife to the gut, and you cringe, but continue, gritting your teeth. 

No. No no no no no no no no no this can’t happen, no. Absolutely not. Oh, fuck, please, no...!

You kneel beside it, taking the three largest pieces into your hand. The rest of it is in splinters, and your breath shakes as you try to scoop them all into your palm. A wheel meanders haphazardly away, and you snatch it and the loose screws up and put them into your pocket before they get out of arm’s reach. 

Numb with shock, you stumble back up the block and into your house, leaving the door open and clambering up the stairs slowly. The wheel in your pocket seems to weigh as much as an elephant.

You make no effort to identify the voice that wafts from the kitchen. “Hey, honey, you’re home early. You were only gone a few minutes.” 

Has it only been minutes? It feels like hours. Hours ago that you were feeling free and happy enough to take up the hobby that you’d so readily dropped for popularity.

When you reach your room, you lay the pieces across your floor, and fetch duct tape from your desk drawer. You know it’s hopeless, and that you’ll never be able to ride it again, but you methodically piece the much-loved object back into something recognizable. You are only half aware of this, though, the other half of your brain is grieving the loss. 

You remember coming home the first day of kindergarten, completely ecstatic at the discovery of these “scooters”, little plastic squares with handles with four wheels that could be “driven” around the rainbow matt on the classroom carpet. You were the only one who’d managed to stand up on it.

You remember your seventh birthday, second grade, which the only thing you had asked for was a skateboard, and tearing open the glorious pale orange wrapping paper to find, lo and behold, a brand-new, teal-wheeled board, nearly as tall as you were. It had been far too big for you then, but you’d grown into it over the years, worn it out, loved it.

You remember a day that same year, in second grade, that you’d had an asthma attack on the playground. You’d had to go to the hospital, since at that time you didn’t carry an inhaler or any sort of medication. 

You remember going to school the next day and finding out that your best friend had told everyone that asthma was contagious, and that nobody could get near to you anymore.

You remember eating alone, never being chosen to be anyone’s partner, having everyone look at you weirdly whenever you opened your mouth to talk, being picked last to be on teams even though you were athletic. 

You remember coming home from school, taking your skateboard to the park, and losing yourself to the speed, the rush of euphoria in your stomach as you were able to spread your wings and fly across the rails, brush your fingers through tree leaves when you flew off the high end of the half-pipe, mastering tricks and even inventing your own without a proper teacher.

You remember spinning out of control, flying through the air in the worst way possible before hitting the ground with the loud SNAP of that one unlucky bone; the only injury that kept you from your board for an elongated amount of time, and even then, the separation only lasted until your leg healed.

You remember rolling out to the park, beaten and bloody, to sit in the field and contemplate your life in the companionable silence provided by the skateboard.

By the time you’ve remembered all of these things, the thing looks as good as it’s going to get, and your hands are throbbing with the splinters which have generously crammed themselves into your digits and palms. For a handful of minutes, you contemplate the pros and cons of leaving them there, and have almost decided to keep them in when your door opens.

Small feet totter up to you and hands too tiny to be your mother’s take your face into their palms. Terezi pulls your face up to meet her critical gaze, and then, wordlessly, she scrubs away tears you hadn’t realized you were shedding. 

Your gaze drops to your lap when she leaves, but you hear a loud clatter and the patter of your sister’s steps returning in your direction, and soon enough, she’s plonked herself down in front of you, and taken one of your hands into both of hers. Now she’s the one methodically piecing you back together, although you flinch at each splinter she plucks out as if she’s tugging out your heart, instead of a small shard of wood. She’s not gentle, but firm and adamant and stubborn, which is something that you needed. At this point, any gentleness offered to you would have gotten you mad. This way, Terezi is showing you that this is stupid and it was just an object, and keeping splinters in your hand is not only weird and painful, but a pointless health hazard, too. Although she probably just thinks that her sister’s a just helpless pain-in-the-ass who can’t take care of herself, rather than the other thing. Well, both are true, so either way is fine.

When she finishes with one hand, she wordlessly moves on to the other, and all too soon, all remnants of your skateboard are no longer inside of you. She spreads antiseptic creme all over both of your hands, sticks bandaids on the more noticeable scratches(there are only five or six on each hand that bled), and kisses each hand once. It’s what Mom does whenever Terezi skins a knee or scrapes a palm or whatever, you realize.

Now she’s tugging on your hand, walking behind you so that she can push you to your feet and sort of herd you towards your bed. You lay down on the mattress and pull her in with you, and you hear her gasp of surprise as you pull the blankets over the both of you. She doesn’t complain, though, and after a moment’s hesitation squirms closer to you, wrapping her small arms around your neck. She’s soft, and warm, and you can’t think of a single thing you could have done to deserve her, so you just tug her closer and utter the first words to be heard since she entered. 

“Thanks, baby.”

-~-

“You know what you need?” Meenah drawls into your ear. It’s been two weeks since the incident, and you’ve tried not to let it show on your face, but your chest feels tight when you remember the glare of headlights, the screech of tires, and the terrifying CRUNCH that was your board and heart shattering into a thousand pieces. You guess it wasn’t that hard to tell that something wasn’t right with you, though. “A party. You been mopin’ like a manatee for fuckin’ weeks, and I, for one, am hella sick of it.”

You try to smile, but it feels like a grimace. “Meenah, I don’t need a stupid par-”

“Rufioh’s havin’ a jam tonight.” She slips a scrap of paper into your palm. “Be there.”

She turns and flounces off, and you here her announce, “Success, bitches!” to the rest of her followers.

Crumpled in your palm is an address, with the words, “BE THERE,” scrawled in pink.

Fine.

-~-

You stand in front of the door, arm poised to knock, when it opens and an arm grabs you inside. Porrim has helpfully supplied you with something resembling a dress, but with far too little material. Diamond-shaped sections of your back are clearly visible to the whole world, as are pretty much the entire expanse of your legs, and an indecent portion of your breasts. Your mom raised an eyebrow as you left the house, but only called, “Have fun,” after the door slammed behind you.

Thankfully, everyone there seems to be wearing something along the same lines. The room is poorly lit and smoky and smells like alcohol and people and something that you don’t want to identify. They pull you into their circle, thrusting a drink in a red cup into your hand.

“Is this...?” The word ‘alcoholic’ dies on your lips. Everyone’s moving, dancing, not staying with one person for more than a few fleeting moments. You stand stiff among this throng, seeming to compose mainly of jocks and girls considered hot enough to hang around them. You can’t help but be a little bit flattered to be there.

You know you should put the drink down, you know, try to have a good time without overindulging, but everyone’s moving and laughing and you never really quite get the chance. It’s hot in there, and you’re thirsty, so, forgetting yourself for a moment, you lift the cup to your lips and sip. It burns going down, but not intensely, and in a moment all you can feel in your chest is a warm haze. 

Immediately, you regret doing so, but grin and bear it, and since you can’t really feel any sort of negative effect, you brush it off. You keep on dancing, twisting, raising your arms above your head and occasionally sipping at your drink. You’re just thirsty, and you don’t realize that you should stop until you’ve accepted your third opaque plastic cup of mystery liquid. 

Suddenly, Cronus is there, getting quite up close and personal, much to your muddled, semi-muted distaste. Wow, Cronus is very close now, hands finding clefts at your waist and half-closed eyes giving your own a drunken, lust-filled staredown. Now, in your current state of sobriety, you don’t quite pick up on any ill-intent, so you proceed to wrap your arms around his shoulders and move to his rhythm, for a proper dance. 

Now, to be fair, Cronus is a good dancer. An unlit cigarette hangs lazily between his lips, and he follows the beat of the song, giving you attention and quite the show. You’re having a good time, moving with him and laughing with him, until, quite suddenly(or so it seems), he leans down and kisses you, hard. He pulls you closer(even closer, how was that even possible?), and there’s quite a bit of tongue involved. You’re not sure how you feel when you notice his eyes, not on you, but across the room, waging war with- Meenah’s. Her arms are folded and she gives him this sort of unimpressed smirk. Then his eyes are back on you, his hands are moving, and you’d really like some intervention to occur here because this is not at all how you imagined kissing would be. 

As it is though, you just let out a weak whine of protest that Cronus seems to take as passionate encouragement. He touches you indecently, in front of everyone, and though nobody is looking you feel self-conscious and squirmy and- where are you going? He’s tugging you along by the arm, you notice though the relief of his lips no longer being on yours, but you don’t know where you’d even be going. Or why you’re going anywhere with Cronus.

You look over your shoulder and stare pleadingly around, trying to catch somebody’s eye, anybody’s...! 

Your please are answered when Porrim intercepts Cronus at the door. She looks cross. “What are you doing?” She demands, glaring, ooh, that glare almost burns to look at. It’s hard to tell who it’s aimed at. 

Your stuttered reply draws to a close as Cronus unclenches his hand from your bicep. He then whips around and stalks back into the throng.

Your feet carry you closer to Porrim, and she squeezes your hand. “I called Kankri to pick you up. You are smashed, girly, and I don’t want anyone picking you up.” She winks at you, then becomes stern. “You should definitely be more careful. Don’t let men get all over you like that. Have boundaries and make them respect them.” She lectures, opening the doors. “Let’s go; I’ll wait with you.”

And she does, until, shortly after, Kankri shows up in a crumpet of a vehicle, all wheezes and puffs of smoke and chipping paint. They help you into the back seat, where you settle in for a lecture, laughing at Kankri’s view on how women should be able to wear what they would like, but this day and age it would be wise to be a bit more careful at such places, and how those sorts of places didn’t strike him as the safest in the first place. “Really, Miss Pyrope, what were you thinking, drinking so irresponsibly, which, if I may add, is in the first place illegal...”

And you’re still giggling like a three-year old when he continues to say, “And, on a side note: Why Cronus?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so so so sorry this took so long I swearsies... And Mituna wash' even in it, ughhh. Maybe next time.


End file.
